Shamanic Kick-Start!

Since getting back from Twilight, I've been wanting to deepen my spiritual practice again. I got off track over the summer, but now that we are well and truly into the fall I feel called to start moving again. This was confirmed in both the rune reading and journeying I did last night as part of my observation of Samhain. It's time for me to renew my commitment to this and have a new start (the rune reading said other things, too, which I may discuss at a later date). I received some practical advice on how to do that, but not much. I never do get much practical advice from my spirit friend; I think they prefer to force me to work things out on my own.

Anyway, to make a long story short (too late!) I am focusing more on my shamanic practice. Not only did I get a jumpstart in that direction with my work in Eagle Clan at Twilight, but that has been a central aspect of my spirituality for a long time now. I've deviated some from Core Shamanism in that time, which I don't think is a bad thing, but I've more or less been in a holding pattern in regards to my shamanic practice (among other things). I need to start moving forward. The obvious way to do that is the talk to the spirits themselves, ask them what I need to do. However, in addition to rarely giving me practical advice, I find that my spirit friends rarely respond well to open ended questions. I need to go to them with more specific ideas of where I want to go, but I'm coming up short. Thus, I turn to books.

I started by rereading parts of Shamanism: as a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life, which I had enjoyed previously. I still have some issues with the book, but it did give me a few interesting ideas to explore regarding the Middle World. Normally I do all of my work in the Lower World, but it seems that exploring the spiritual aspect of the world we live in can only do me good. Not that I've gotten around to this yet.

Then my newest book purchase arrived in the mail: DIY Totemism. I read almost the entire book yesterday; it's that good. Then I found the author's blog about creating her own shamanic tradition. Both of these resources -- the book and the blog -- have given me much to think about! Aside from seeming to share all of the same pet peeves about neopaganism and neoshamanism, it is refreshing to read about shamanism from a perspective that is neither straight Core Shamanism or Indigenous Shamanism. I was surprised by how well some of what she has discovered fits with my experiences. For instance, that you can talk to totems/guides/spirit friends in meditation/trance or journey. I've always done that, but felt like I was doing something wrong, since I'd never heard of anyone else being able to contact their guides outside of the Other Worlds. I've always felt that it was safer and easier to have a conversation in trance than to go on a full out journey. I'd rather save visiting the Other Worlds for, well, visiting the other worlds! I'll be very excited to start working on the exercises in the book. You can probably look forward to reading about my results as this month progresses.